The death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C.. marked the beginning of a new
stage in world history. Hellenic civilization, properly defined, was now at an
end. The fusion of cultures and intermingling of peoples resulting from
Alexander's conquests had accomplished the overthrow of most of the ideals
represented by the Greeks in their prime. Gradually a new pattern of
civilization emerged based upon a mixture of Greek and Oriental elements. To
this new civilization, which lasted until about the beginning of the Christian
era, the name Hellenistic is the one most commonly applied. While the
Hellenistic Age is sometimes regarded as simply a final
chapter in the history of Greece, this is by no means
correct. The centuries which followed the death of
Alexander were so markedly different from the

Golden Age of Greece that they
cannot be accurately regarded as a continuation of it.

Though the language of the new era
was Greek, and though persons of Greek nationality continued to
play an active role in many affairs, the spirit of the culture
was largely the spirit of the Orient.

The classical ideal of democracy was
now superseded by despotism perhaps as rigorous as any that
Egypt or Persia had ever produced. The Hellenic devotion to
simplicity and the golden mean gave way to extravagance in art
and to a love of luxury and riotous excess. The Athenian
economic system of small-scale production was supplanted by the
growth of big business and ruthless competition for profits.

Though progress in
science continued, the sublime confidence in the power of the mind which had
characterized the teachings of most of the philosophers from Thales to Aristotle
was swallowed up in defeatism and ultimately in the sacrifice of logic to
faith.

In view of these changes it seems justifiable to
conclude that the Hellenistic Age was really the era of a new civilization as
distinct from the Greek as modern civilization is from the culture of the Middle
Ages.

After the death
of Alexander the Great, Perdiccas took the role of regent
of the kingdom, after he shared with the other generals the
duties of the governance. Craterus became his prime
minister, Lysimachus took over the rule of Thrace,
Ptolemy in Egypt, Antigonus in the great Phrygia,
Leonnatus the Hellespontine Phrygia, Laomedon in
Syria, and Antipater, whom Alexander had defined as a
viceroy in Europe, the government of Macedonia and southern
Greece.

However, the
absence of a strong man who would controlled the rivalries the
ambitions and the competitions of those leaders, as Alexander
did, proved disastrous for the unity of the great empire. As a
result, backstage intrigues appeared, and obvious conflicts
also, and just two years after the death of Alexander, and after
the neutralization of Crateros and Perdiccas, the empire led to
a new division, in which Antipater was a viceroy, Antigonus the
overall commander of the army with his assistant Cassander,
son of Antipater, Seleucus took Babylon, and Ptolemy kept
Egypt.

Two years later
(319 BC) the death of Antipater rekindled the controversy until
Antigonus, who was the governor of the Asia Minor, Greece, and
Syria, recognized himself the title of the king in 306, and the
other diadochi followed him immediately. Neither this,
however, ended the fighting. In 301 BC the successors united and
managed to make Antigonus inactive, who defeated and killed in
the battle of Ipsus.

With the death of
Ptolemy I Soter in 283 BC, Lysimachus in 281 BC and
Seleucus in 280 BC the last companions of Alexander were lost.
The fightings for the prevalence in the eastern Mediterranean
continued. Finally four kingdoms were created, quite stable and
resistant: Macedonia, Egypt, Syria and
Pergamon, who survived, some of them for several decades and
others for centuries, until all of them attached to the Roman
Empire: Macedonia in 168 BC after the battle of Pydna,
southern Greece in 146, Pergamon in 133, which the king
Attalus III, who died without leaving descendants, inherited
it to the Romans, Syria in 64 BC and everything that left from
the kingdom of the Seleucids became by Pompey the Great a
Roman province, and Egypt in 31 BC after the battle of Actium.

The Asian nations,
after the death of Alexander the Great

The Asian
nations, after the death of Alexander the Great, did not
rebelled, not because of the weapons of the macedonian
administration and discipline. The reason was the stability
throughout Asia. There was a reaction from the side of the Greek
settlers (who had left from the expedition of Oxus), and
wanted to return. Approximately 20,000 soldiers and 3,000
cavalry, without the fear of Alexander the Great and led by
Philo the Ainian, left their units and with their weapons
marched to the West. Against them moved the satrap of Media,
Peithon, and forced them to capitulate. However, the
Macedonians, not wanted to lose the rich spoils of the rebels,
and - according to Diodorus-, they attacked to the
unarmed soldiers, killing many of them.

Athens - The years
after the death of Alexander

Both the death of
Alexander the Great and the long-term war between the
successors, helped to enhance the anti-makedonian spirit in
Greece. The start was made by the Athenians and the Aetolians,
followed by other cities. According to Plutarch, the
first who announced the death of the great commander in Athens
was Asclepiades, son of Hipparchus. To avoid hasty
moves, and to be prepared for any eventuality and to deceive
Antipatros not to move against them, the Athenians sent 50
talants to Leosthenes in order to set up mercenary army
and to be armed with weapons from the public warehouses.

However, the news
that, from Babylon, the cities of Asia Minor and Rhodes had
already driven out the macedonian guard, had begun to arrive to
all the macedonian territory. Initiators of antimakedonian front
were the Athenians orators Demosthenes and Hypereides,
who drifted the people and began to persecute and to condemn all
the supporters of the Macedonians.

Leosthenes
proceeded with the Aetolians to Thermopylae, while Athenian
ambassadors were traveling from town to town and called for
establishment of an anti-makedonian alliance. Locris and
Fokis allied with them. Antipatros with 13,000
soldiers and 600 cavalry, marched against Thessaly leaving the
general Sippas in Macedonia. In the battle, according to
Plutarch, Antipatros was forced to retreat, a fact
that excited the athenian alliance front and caused the whole
Thessaly to rebel and join the allies, with 2,000 cavalry.

The battle of Lamia

In the
final battle in Lamia (322 BC), while everything showed that the
situation was in Leosthene's benefit and that the surrender of
Antipatros was a matter of time, Leosthenes was deathly wounded
in a fight, and Leosthenes was replaced by Antiphilus.
Were followed battles and a preparation of an even larger fleet
of the Athenians. Meanwhile, in the summer of 322 BC,
Craterus arrived from Asia with 10,000 veterans, joined with
Antipater and conquered Thessaly. Then, many cities were asked
to capitulate to the Macedonians, including Athens. Antipatros
asked for the orators to surrender, this request was not
accepted. Soon the Macedonians were able to prevail, resulting
in the oligarchic regime to replace the democracy in Athens, and
the Athenians to pay a financial compensation. The condition
which imposed and specified that only those who had a property
more than 2,000 drachmas would be considered as citizens, -
according to Diodorus- , excluded many landless and
economically weaker classes from executing their political
rights.

The danger of a
disorder caused the Macedonians to the offer them to resettle to
Thrace. Thus, the Athenians decreased to 9,000 people.
Hypereides murdered and Demosthenes, to avoid the dishonor,
killed himself. Many participants in the revolution from other
allied cities were murdered or exiled. Finally enforced the
presence of makedonian guards in almost the whole Greek region.
The only who continued to resist were the Aetolians, who got
peace with very favorable conditions.

Redistribution of power
in Triparadisus

Regent
Perdiccas came from the upper-class, was clever, tough and
experienced military man, but in no case could replace the
hegemonic character of Alexander, and keep united the empire,
dealing efficiently the ambition, the intrigues and the
competition among the descendants. The natural consequence was,
two years after the end of Alexander, to be murdered by his own
cavalry (321 BC), and a re-distribution of the kingdoms to be
established. He was not able to consolidate the unity of
macedonian empire and to establish its monocracy, blinded by his
pride that made him unjust and despotic.

The new
distribution of power (known also as the Partition of
Triparadisus) which took place in Triparadisus (a greek
settlement in Syria near the sources of the Orontes), had as a
result the choice of Antipatros as regent of the kingdom,
Antigonus as the general commander of the army , Seleucus
and Ptolemy as governors of Babylon and Egypt. With the
new division the kingdom was restored to the European
territories from Asia, in which Alexander had moved it's center.
The Hellenistic Macedonia had lost the characteristics that
enabled to overcome the barriers of different cultures and
languages, and the ability to administer the territories of the
empire.

The admixtures of
different cultures, the major conflicts and -in fact- the
decomposition of the single kingdom, set the basis for multiple
transformations and new shapes. The Macedonian leaders to ensure
their dominance in Europe, Asia and Africa, served first in an
effort to weak their own makedonian state. The result of all
these alterations was, finally, to create new kingdoms with
their own ethnicities, and a culture that had its own
characteristics.

Phocion and Demades

Meanwhile, Athens
was still the source from which the macedonian state exported
culture to Asia or just another military base. The once strong
city ruled by the friends of Macedonians, Phocion and
Demades. They were different characters, seeking to
establish their own perception of governance. Phocion who was
mild and honest, refused to accept gifts from kings and
generals, removed the restless people from the policy and took
care for the Athenians to occupy with the agriculture and rural
life. Demades was ambitious, dishonest, with moves which aimed
to promote his own plans and profits. Antipatros consider
them both as his friends and, according to Plutarch, he
used to say that he was not able to persuade Phocion to accept
not even a simple gift, while he could not satisfy Demades with
all that he offered him.

In the meantime
the Athenians asked Phocion to mediate for removing the
macedonian guards , however, the only he succeeded was to reduce
the fees and increase the repayment period. From his side,
Demadis with his son, Demeas, wanting to prove his
influence to Antipatros, visited him at the end of 320 BC in
Macedonia. Antipatros, however, had discovered some letters of
Demades to Perdiccas (who was Antipatro's opponent), with which
he called him for intervention, to free the Greeks, in his words
"as they were holding from an old and rotten rope". Therefore he
ordered to tie them, and his son Cassander, decided to
kill Demeas first in the arms of his father, and then him.

Antipatros did
not live long after the death of Demades. Feeling not enough
strong, he called Cassander from Asia and assigned him some of
his duties. Although he had significant assets, he failed to
fill the big gap from the loss of Alexander. Since the
Macedonians hated his son, mainly because of his hardness,
handed over his power to Polyperchon, a capable general
and dear to the people and the army.

He urged, according to Diodorus, Polyperchon and
Cassander not to allow the power to pass into the hands of the
women of the royal family. Antipatros died in 319 BC, at the age
of 80 years, and although he had undertook the governance by
showing restraint and forgiving the generals who had turned
against him in the campaign of Egypt, he defined by an irregular
way his successor, stirring up once again, the battle of
succession.